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Harleen Gretzky added a comment - 05/Feb/08 10:35 PM
You can also see new ones by clicking the up arrow next to Communicate, any new IM sessions or IM sessions that have new chat will have an asterisk next to them.
My main beef with the highlighting is that it's really hard to see against the gray background. Someone sent me an IM and it took me about half an hour to notice, as my attention wasn't directly focused on my IM tabs. It'd be nice to see either a different color or more contrast as a better visual cue.
I agree with McCabe. I like to be able to see the flashing tab until I open that tab. The arrow next to communicate is nice, but it's a pita if it is the ONLY way to know you have a new IM after the flashing has stopped. Also, the level of the flash is reduced making it far less noticeable when it does flash.
I also noticed this and already missed several messages because they no longer blink.
 Yes I know we have a * in the new communicate menu, but flashing tabs are something that is at a glance easy to see. Why change it when it works so well? :/
-DB This is a problem in the latest Windlight client as well. On a notebook LCD screen the color change of IMs that receive new messages is far too subtle to notice; and even if the color change were noticeable, it would still not be as useful as the old flashing, because your eyes might not be directly on the IM window when you get an IM.
This is an accessibility issue. Hearing-impaired residents require visual cues, and this current visual cue just does not cut it. For the past two nights I have annoyed several personal and business contacts because I had no idea they had IMmed me. If the flashing was removed for usability reasons, please give us a menu option to enable flashing for those who rely on or require it. This is very frustrating! I've missed several IM starts, only to notice them half an hour later, when the contact is no longer available to talk. Please bring the flashing back!
Yes,,, Please bring back the flashin IM tab,, or at least SOME clear indication that an IM is being received. I missed 5 messages last night. To me it must have seemed very rude to be ignored!!!!
At the very least, the contrast between updated IMs and non-updated IMs needs to be increased by several orders of magnitude. I don't have time to squint at a monitor trying to decide if it's the non-updated grey or the updated grey on each window. And I'm not going to cycle through all 10 windows every 30 seconds to check
 Alas, this appears to be an INTENTIONAL change: see
In the meantime, this person posted a partial workaround on the blog (below). I haven't tested this, myself. Maybe there's a proper Preferences user interface coming to set this that's just not exposed yet?
(from blog.secondlife.com) Iskar Ariantho Says: February 7th, 2008 at 11:39 PM PST I've been missing IMs left and right because of this change to the UI. For some strange reason I'm not getting the IM Received button or the ding noise either. I'll be sticking with the old client until LL fixes this!!
I will note that the Jira that resulted in flashing being taken away only received 2 votes! I am also someone who has stopped using Windlight and RC solely because of this issue.
I don't find the flashing that useful as i can easily have more tabs open than can fit across the window. This is due to long group names and not being able to close those tabs if i still want to recieve IMs from them.
What would be more useful for me would be if the incoming IM button would appear if the tab is not visible even if the window is open and persist until all updated tabs have been seen. But that would mean fixing the incoming IM button first. Also an option for the recived IM sound to occur every time the incoming IM button appears and not just when a new tab is created might help. Hi everybody, I'm the original submitter of the
However, I still stand by my original proposal - constant flashing is distracting and inteface which flashes constantly is simply a bad interface. That's why HTML <blink> tags were so bad, to name just one similar case. And that's why in windows in taskbar in Windows flash a few times and then stop flashing. That's what was freaking me out originally, I found myself clicking through IM windows just to get rid of flashing, and then later go through them again and read them and respond. As for the final implementation of my proposal, I don't find it so bad and could live with it - it's certainly much nicer than endless flashing. However, that said, it would be nice if flashing went on a bit longer (5 seconds would be a decent period), and if the highlighted color would be more noticeable (orange comes to mind as a nice, noticeable color consistent with UI look&feel). I find this latest change most unhelpful. A flash of a few seconds only works if you are constantly staring at your IM window. Please take it back to permanent flash until IM is read?
This change has been a nightmare!! Why change someone that has worked for so long so well? Please fix this as soon as possible!!!
@Domchi, I'm not mad at you for submitting the Jira, but I am a bit annoyed it was implemented after only 2 votes, and that there was no ability to turn flashing back on for the hearing impaired or others who listen to audio sources other than SL. I have missed a lot of IMs due to the current implementation, and this can potentially cost me money, considering a number of my IMs are from potential customers with questions before they decide to buy my land.
Your suggestion about a longer flashing time doesn't seem adequate to me. Just like with the "ding", how does 5 seconds of flashing help the person who happens to be in the bathroom during that window? Also, your comparison to the HTML blink tag does not apply here. People used blink arbitrarily, and often covered whole pages with blinking all-caps text. Blinking draws your eyes to a portion of the screen that you wouldn't otherwise be looking at, and that is EXACTLY what you want if your eyes are usually elsewhere when someone happens to send you a message. So in this case, flashing has a very specific and useful purpose for me and many other people. I want flashing back, but I understand that some folks don't like it. It is for this reason that I propose we have a UI settings option for "Make IM tabs with new messages flash until read" that defaults to enabled, but can be disabled in preferences. We should have a notification that catches your eye but isn't easily annoying, likely one that's a better "middle ground" like a more contrasty color... and wouldn't require an option (we have too many of those already).
This is a hot issue (55 votes right now) and our Resident Experience Team should be looking at it shortly. Wildefire, how about this solution:
I think the biggest problem with current implementation is not the implementation itself, but the fact that white unread tabs are not noticeable, and that flash is barely noticeable since it's over before it starts flashing. So once you return from bathroom, you should be able to see and click through all orange tabs which should be clearly noticeable even if they stopped flashing. And the people like me, who don't want to answer all IMs right away, can ignore the 5, 10 or 15 seconds of flashing and still not be constantly anoyed by flashing if they're currently doing something else that requires 15 minutes of full concentration. (And still know which tabs have unread messages after that, since they haven't clicked through all the annoying flashing just to turn it off.) Like it, or hate it, the viewer interface is so well established that playing with its appearance really ought to require more than two votes.
There's some merit in the phrase "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" - and Heaven knows there are enough genuinely broken bits to fix, without inventing new ones. Yet another voice of "but it's too easy to miss IM's now".
IM = Instant Message = Requires a flashing or much more obvious marker that = Instant Attention. I'll try the orange suggestion if that's the way the coders want to go with it, but a simple revert to flashing would be just fine by me, and probably is just as visually "annoying" as having bright orange tabs floating about. Maybe just slowing the rate of the flashing would have been the ideal compromise in the first place? (My preferred compromise solution). @Coyote Pace
Thank you for the debug option ButtonFlashCount from Iskar Ariantho, this does help, but it is a debug option rather than default behaviour. As many users do not delve into the complex world of debug options it does not resolve the issue for the majority of Residents unless they are told of the option. As Torley points out, we already have many debug options to choose from. Since this is such a fundamental user interface issue, I think that the default is very important. I personally would like to see either the default behaviour restored, or as some have suggested, a tab that changes colour to a clearly visible highlight after a period of blinking. For those who want to maintain the IM blinking, the ButtonFlashCount debug option should be maintained. This will also allow visually impaired users who have colour differentiation challenges to keep a method of seeing new IMs. 2 people said change it.
61 people say change it back. Sixty-seconded. Many of the changes currently being made do not conform to internationally recognised accessibility standards for people with disabilities; this is only one of them.
I prefer the current non-blinking IM tabs, because the blinking ones were a constant irritation.
For the record I don't have sound on in SL. Another voice that wants the blinking back!
To please all .. why not make the IM tab behaviour a menu-option or even a debug-setting to allow anyone to set it the way he wants? I would definitely like the old behavior back: tabs blink if they have unseen traffic, and if there are tabs with unseen traffic that are not displayed, something blinks in the direction of those tabs. I'm pretty sure it used to work that way! *8) And that's why I've missed to many IMs recently, to my great annoyance.
Clearly some people hate the blinking, and some of us rely on it. Which probably means, sigh, some sort of UI (or debug-settings) option. What I don't understand, if the blinking tabs was a irritation, why do have your communicate window open in the first place? It sounds like you werent responding or reading those IM's. If you don't have it open, you won't see the tabs blink (ctrl-t to open and close it fast). Very simple solution. The blinking was a great indiciator of unseen or unacted upon IM's. I have done the debug fix mentioned above, and while it does work, it is not as good as they were originally. But it is still 100x better than the default blink 3 times be slightly highligted (hard to see) that it is now in RC.
The IM notifications tend to be difficult to notice, and this difficulty is for people with good eyes. Consider that not everyone utilizing SL has ideal vision, and may need a clear indicator that doesn't rely on awareness of a subtle change in color saturation. There could likely be any number of people out there with diminished vision for whom this would be extremely frustrating, moreso than for the users who can't notice the notifier with healthy eyes.
This is bothersome, it causes frustration for people, and introduces a new vector for complications in communication... which makes it, on those merits alone, a failure in functionality. Keep the notification on the local chat tab, but make it function as the IM's used to, and make the IM's function as they formally did, rather than lessening their function without sufficient reason nor forethought. The lack of flashing is extremely annoying. I've missed many, many IMs because of it, and why? I just can't hardly see it. The blinking was a good, effective visual cue, unlike this current one, which is frankly totally ineffective.
Please, please, PLEASE set it to blinking again, or at least a bright color. Orange? Yellow? Bright blue? Anything would be better than "slightly brighter grey"... that just doesn't cut it. Torley – hopefully the middle ground you come up with will be something that will catch your eye in a longer-term way, not just a few quick blinks that are easy to miss if you're focused on another tab, walk away from the computer for a minute, or it's out-of-view on the rightmost end of a long line of tabs.
I really liked being able to scroll quickly back and forth along my IM tab row and see which had blinking new activity, even the ones that were offscreen to the right (if those flash offscreen and then stop, I never see them). In the current implementation, I never notice the difference between active tabs and inactive ones. I know ones with activity are lighter, when I stop to really look that closely... but of course, having the lighter tab also renders the text ON the tab essentially unreadable. Consider also that if the person's focus is off the communication window, the window is typically semi-transparent which means any shade or color shift will be half as noticeable. Every other IM system I've ever used (AIM, Yahoo, ICQ) uses a flashing-eternally-till-clicked indicator... so I'd argue that that's a good reason to stick with that UI in here. I hate going to tabs only to discover that someone left me a message a half-hour ago, and now they're offline... I wish you luck finding a middle ground for this! Thanks for looking into it. Gimme my blinking back! Please? One of my main activities in SL is to chat with friends and if I don't catch that they're IMing me I'll miss 'em!
I never ever thought I'd vote in favor of anything blinking on any UI, but something seriously needs fixing here. A really high contrast color might suffice, but it's way too easy to miss the current subtle difference.
Working as Hostess, I Can't used the new version, i miss to much IM's that need to be bright and visible, the non visual part when the where hidden before was an issue, this is impossible!!! Revert utill you have a better solution, the current change have to be undone before more damage is added.
It can't be that hard to revert the behaviour and then restart, apparently the view of the users wasn't with the one that made the change on this. Be prestige less admit you missed the feeling of most users and undo it. I suggest to add the number of times the tab needs to blink in the preferences text chat tab. Zero will than be the value for continues blinking. Having another option to specify the color of an IM window with a new message would also be very handy !
I agree with Ben's suggestion.
99 vs 2 and counting. This issue along with the release keys button are the 2 most anoying features of 1.19.0.
As this has now become and official release, with no change, I take it that the Resident Experience Team looked at it very "shortly" indeed Torley. The flashing of IM tabs to indicate new messages needs returning to the original (1.18.5.3) standard. All through RC 1.19.0.x testing I have been missing IMs as my attention was not focused 100% on the Communication window.
I'm in favor of the "old" situation ... maybe best if this would be an optional setting. An alert for "hidden" tabs with new data would be even better.
Changing the debug settings for the number of flashes doesn't seem to get saved in preferences.
Does anyone know how / what to add a couple of lines to the settings.xml files to force the flash count to something large on login? Another vote here.
Now we've all been forced to upgrade to 1.19 it's a real issue that should never have got past the RC state. This has become one of the most irritating things I've seen a while. Not only does my IM not flash, but I get no chime either. I keep missing IMs from people, and people think I'm a jerk for ignoring them. Please, for the sake of decent SL society fix this bug pronto.
Yes, please... if it is possible to at least have colored tabs (of our own choosing) it would help with this issue. Blinking tabs certainly helped. Thank you!
I was using the debug workaround to set the blink to 999... but now that I have the RC installed, of course it's back to the non-blinking behavior and as a result I'm missing IMs again.
Please address this ASAP. As mentioned above, blinking for unseen IMs is a standard user interface approach for every online messaging system I've ever used. (AIM, ICQ, etc.) so... why remove the blink? I keep having to apologize to people when I don't see their IMs. When it's really embarassing I say I was AFK when really, I just didn't see it! Aargh. This is a huge issue which is disrupting communication for business and social interaction alike. Coupled with the flakiness of Friends Online on the web site it is crippling for those of us trying to maintain professional and personal relationships in SL.
Ask all your affected friends to vote!! I have missed a good many personal IMs and group IMs due to this, and it's rather annoying.
Solution for annoying NON blinking of IM tab with new message
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The new viewer version 1.19.0(5) has an annoying new feature: The IM tab only flashes three times when a new message is received. After that the color is slighly lighter than before, and that causes a lot of unnoticed new IMs. Bummer! There is a solution ! Check that you are indeed running version 1.19.0(5) by clicking help, About Second Life... Look at the top of your window, do you have File, Edit, View, World, Tools, Help and then Client Server ? If you do not have Client Server, hold down ctrl and alt and press the letter D. Now click on Client and Debug Settings. A window appears with the title Debug Settings, click in the entry field and type the word ButtonFlashCount. Change the default value from 3 into 99999 and press ENTER on your keyboard. Now close the Debug Settings window. Whenever a new IM message is received in a non active tab of you IM, the tab will flash 99,999 times ! kind regards, Tenochtitlan Club AZTEC management team I have to agree with anyone who wants OPTIONS. You get win win with the option of turning it on or off. The fact that it blinks just a few times makes me confused as to whether my mouse passed over it or not as well. I also support Torley's idea of the contrasty color. btw since the "IM Received" button no longer pops up if you have the communicate tab open (and minimized), is there a relation to these two issues? I miss it also.
I'd support the return of infinite-blinking (especially versus yet another option). I'm not a UI super-maven but I can't think of any compelling reason for why it was changed to a low finite number of blinks. Would infinite blinking take us back to a happy place?
I would dearly love having infinite-blinking back. It is unusual that with infinite-blinking I always noticed my IMs within 30 to 60 seconds of a message being sent, but with the present set up sometimes miss them for up to half an hour.
Yes, Tofu, please count me as another happy supporter of the return to "infinite blinking" for new IMs. Thanks!
I'm charmed by the phrase, and think that yes .. infinite blinking would take us back to a happy place.
If only life were always this simple. I personally would rather there be too many configuration items rather than too few, and would love to be able to adjust all the colors of the UI to my needs or tastes (and on a per-user basis). Then people with no friends who like low-contrast non-blinky tabs they can't see but aren't "in their face" can choose that, and those of us who prefer to actually know when someone is trying to talk to us and might prefer super-contrasty colors and ultra-obnoxious blinking could choose that, or even sensible alternatives in between. I have made the ButtonFlashCount change above which helps A LOT, but having better contrast, something that apparently isn't currently possible, would be another alternative I might prefer.
The "per-user" I mentioned above would allow those of us with multiple alts running on the same machine to make it more obvious which alt is active at any given time; each could have their own color scheme. Right now I rely on huds and things like that, but if my character changes outfits and happens to not be wearing the hud I'm used to... http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-3038 Please please please bring back the flashing IM tabs !! I CANNOT believe anyone would remove such an essential communications tool as this. Before, when it flashed, you could see fairly quickly when and who was waiting for a reply from you, however many IMs you had open. Now, it is just impossible as you have to CHECK EVERY IM TAB IN CASE THERE IS A NEW REPLY. This is total nonsense, and impossible to live with. A case of it "if it ain't broke, FIX it" ??
I cannot stress enough that this is a MAJOR fault and must be fixed asap. I have met NO-ONE who has a positive word to say about this so-called "enhancement". If you must make a useless, non-flashing IM tab, then fgs put it as a Debug option and leave the previous system well alone for the vast majority of users. This is one of the worst changes I have ever seen in Second Life. I voted for
Tid, I think this was a case of "If it ain't broke, break it!"
Infinite blinking sounds a very zen concept, gets my vote.
Attached a patch that make a reasonable fix of this problem.
Un-believable. The original jira
This should be about good UI design, not votes. And I couldn't disagree with Domchi more - flashing is Not a 'bad interface'. Flashing is perfectly acceptable in a GUI if it does what it is intended to do (as others in the thread, such as Wildefire and Laila, have pointed out). There are situations where flashing, or animation of any sort is simply a 'bad interface' decision (for example, a PowerPoint presentation with animated GIFs asks the viewer to Not pay attention to the PPT content; and those endless web pages where animations or flashing draws your eye away from the target content - ever wonder why those annoying banner ads have so much movement in them?). Dynamic visual content has its place in GUI design if it used appropriately, and the flashing IM tab is (was) a great example of appropriate use. In the SL viewer, the flashing IM tab played a critical role in inter-avatar communications. And there are plenty of ways of dealing with the flashing tabs. Like telling a caller that you are busy and could they call back (big duh here). Or setting your Busy mode so that you don't get IMs during that critical period where you absolutely can't take another call. Or tearing off an IM window into a separate window. Or - see suggestion below. Would you put multiple callers on hold indefinitely on your telephone (where, btw, the line light indicator usually flashes to remind you that someone is holding)? That is a good way to lose friends and lose business. If you don't want to be extremely rude, you will tell your callers - on the phone or in SL IMs - that you are busy, and they must call back. Torley's suggestion about a "middle ground" is inappropriate. It flies in the face of the voting numbers as well as basic user interface design principles. We all love Torley's enthusiasm for the SL virtual world, and I personally admire him for being one of the few Lindens who jump into these JIRA threads, but wrong is wrong. The flashing tab is 'easily annoying' only to those who are attempting to field Too Many IMs at once. It is a constantly flashing reminder of their failure to effectively communicate with all those folks behind the flashing tabs (which is impossible to do in many cases). (The exception here is with public people, like club hostsesses - but we all know they are in many concurrent IMs and understand if we need to wait.) But the problem is not the flashing tab - the problem is an individual's inability to manage their communications. Taking away the flashing tab just removes the visible reminder of their failure; it doesn't remove the fact that their communication management is a mess, or would be impossible, in any case, to manage effectively, because of the volume - in fact, it makes it even worse. I have had many people get very angry with me, and as well, I have lost money when business deals never got completed (or never got started), because IMs were missed. IOW, this change is just plain bad. My comment is not just about a bad decision, but how it was made. It is time for LL to suck it up, admit they were wrong and fix the problem. Having said all that I do have a couple of suggestions. First, with the flashing tabs, you can use ButtonFlashRate in Debug Settings, to lower the frequency - sometimes a slower flashing is much less irritating. This won't help with poor communications management issues though. Second, a communications management feature that some might find useful: if you close an IM window, then insert a message into the other person's window like "DJ Welles has closed this IM window.". Your friends and associates might need to be educated on what it means when you do this, but it could help simplify your communications. It would also send a message to hostile communicators that you are no longer interested in talking with them (fortunately, I have had few instances where this would have been useful). Ok, I got that off my chest. This should be reverted to 1.18 behavior. "Local chat" tab should not flash, and IM tabs should flash. All was good, lets get back to that happy place.
Yes, even with setting the blink count high in the debug settings, we still have annoying blinking of the "Local chat" in the communicate window. I really see no reason what so ever for the change that made it into 1.19. I have missed many many important messages this way
Flashing IM tabs are very useful. Particularly if you're following a conversation while reading a web site. Certain people get narky if you miss their IMs and I also need it if I've asked a question in a help group chat. Another vote to restore continuous flashing of the tab with a new message.
Keep the new asterick noted message functionality. It is not a bad thing. But for many of us, when we are in conversation or focused on something (say writing an lsl script) will simply not notice a tiny asterick that is on the edge of our screen. The flashing tab further from the edge of the screen is what will get our attention much sooner! Sorry this is taking so long; some Lindens are somewhat redesigning the tab-blink, but I fear it's taking so long that I'll try to sneak infinite-blinking back in while that's still ongoing.
As well as the tab blinking it would be good if the tab of the latest IM received jumped to the left of the IM window.
When you have several IMs going and a new message comes in it will be out of view unless you scroll across. This means you sometimes dont see a new message until you close finished chat windows and messages to the right start to move into view. I think I would be very unhappy if tabs moved around even more than they already do.
Yeah, moving tabs = bad. Imagine you're just about to click on a tab, and it moves away. Either you notice and get annoyed that you have to relocate it... or don't notice and make some personal comment in an IM window to the wrong person. Yeah um no thanks.
Blinking = good. Thank you for watching this even though it may be delayed, Tofu! Whew, okay, it looks like I'll have the alternative design in my hands (for REALLY OBVIOUS but non-blinking new IM state) this week otherwise I will restore infinite blinks.
I attach the fix I'm currently hoping to check in (pending review and tweaks).
A tab with new IMs blinks longer and ends up an orangey color until paid attention to. I'll add a little screenie too. The orange is an improvement, but I don't notice enough of a difference when a tab is actually blinking - it doesn't grab my attention that the original (1.18) blinking did. Also, moving the mouse over an orange tab (or resting the mouse over the tabs, which seems to happen to me a lot) makes it harder to tell that there is an unread message in that tab.
(the patch was applied to Branch_1-20-Viewer-2 revision 665) The orange is definitely an improvement. Maybe you can apply the same idea to chat and IM text, have it appear orange for ten seconds after appearing, so the other notices that I have added a line while they were typing ? (a lot of people look at their keyboard while typing)
What is the issue with blinking anyway? Why NOT allow infinite blinks?
Blinking is pretty much the standard way for any tabbed interface to draw attention to a tab that needs action. Ahh Argent .. but the subtle improvements one could make ..
To my (diseased and infected) mind, the ultimate solution would be a slowly pulsing dim to bright roughly 3 or 4 seconds between lowest and highest brightness. Noticeable if one takes the time to look at the IM tabs. But not glaring enough to annoy you if you have a top priority IM / chat in progress. One would prefer a sin curve to the ebbing dim / brightness, though a mere linear transition would suffice in these coding challenged times. My fall back would indeed be infinite flashing as we had, and we had while SL was flourishing. The dumbest solution? What we have now. A few flashes, then nothing to remind you that you missed something. But something tells me the SL crew want to merge the look and feel with MS Vista / Firefox 3. Hence the dazzle interface. One cannot know the ways and intentions of the SL crew. One must just grin and bear it, and continue paying the subscriptions if one is ok with grinning and bearing. Best. Thanks for the comment Sammy, I've made a clear distinction now between a normal hovered tab and a flashed hovered tab.
Aiming this for 1.20RC12, otherwise 1.21.
Tofu, could you please attach a second patch that shows the colour changes (either in addition to the current one, or as a full new patch)? this will give us a change to give further feedback.
Fluf, the problems with slow pulsing is that you would need to take a longer look at the tabs to notice it, whereas the problem is that we need to be able to have our attention drawn to the tabs when we are not looking at them. Thanks Tofu. An unread tab is much easier to find even if it is the mouse is hovering over it. Given that the point of flashing in general is to grab your attention, is it possible to make the tab flash brighter when it is flashing before settling down to that shade of orange when it is no longer flashing? (A tab with the mouse over it while flashing is more attention grabbing than one that doesn't have the mouse over it)
(for the record, I do prefer infinite flash, but the orange/longer and slower flash is an improvement) Tofu, this (
If you like this idea, want me to tidy up the patch, let me know (and I'm happy to change the colour to something a bit better than the one I have picked for the test, so let me know) Fluf: flashing/pulsing, bobbing up and down like a jack russell terrier, whatever you like.
I'm not talking about the details of the animation, I'm asking why there is all this pushback from Linden Labs over the idea of continuing the animation indefinitely. If I'm AFK then I need that flashing to still be happening when I get back, even if it's 20 minutes later. Argent, I agree with you. Not just when I go AFK, but when I use SL, I also have about four other programs in active use. I want SL to grab my attention when I my eyes pass near that part of the screen, and flashing will do a better job at that than the orange colour.
Having said that, if LL have decided against infinite blinking, I want it to at least be as useable as possible. Thanks for all the input on this folks. The primary purpose in eliminating infinite blinking was because it was extremely distracting when you were trying to focus on other tasks in the viewer (particularly once four or five tabs started lighting up). But we acknowledge the interim solution wasn't visible enough so we've implemented a fix very similar to the proposed.png image attached (three flashes followed by a persistent orange state). We look forward to getting your feedback on the new design once it goes into the RC.
Benjamin: PLEASE make it an option to go back to indefinite blinks.
You don't want you screen blinking away. That's fine. Turn it off for you. Turn it off by default . Make the limit something you have to tweak in XML, if that's what it takes for you to be willing to give people the option. But don't screw things up for people who are already missing messages. And speaking of missing messages, don't forget that many people are not using your color scheme, and will never use your color scheme. You need a solution that works whether or not people are using Dazzle. No amount of tweaking with the color scheme will do that. This will be a new setting in colors.xml, yes? If not it needs to be.
Edit: ahh nevermind, just viewed the patch above. Excellent! This was needed. And making it separate from the hover color: kudos for that. If I had my mouse hovering over an IM while responding to another, I kept getting confused if I had a new IM or not since the colors were the same. Benjamin said about blinking tabs: "...it was extremely distracting...". Well Benjamin, that is your your opinion. Why don't you listen to us? The majority of us do not see it as extremely distracting. The blinking is very good way to alert us of new messages. Please do make it so that user can select infinite blinking time, certain number of blinkings, no blinking at all. Then we all would be happy. It IS extremely annoying and rude to the other person when we miss to notice new IMs. Communication is a vital part of SL, we do not want to appear impolite.
What surprises me is that Linden Lab is making the changes what THEY like. If Linden Lab does not like something, it appears that they are very reluctant to implement it, however many of us are praying for it. Are you making the client for yourselves or for us the "residents"? You sure need to pay more attention to your customers. M Linden, are you listening....? Since it's been moved to release pending without any explanation, I guess we're not going to get one.
Eventually I got used to this but I for one support them making the quick (and painless) change of having it blink again or strengthening the contrast. Such an easy fix.
I'm still not used to it. I wonder what the "Fix Pending" is. Will the settings in the new skinnable client solve this somehow?
I just looked at the new viewer. What a mess! I also want infinite blinking back! Look at the votes! 100+ votes FOR blinking, 2 against! Linden labs needs to change their policy of relentlessly pressing forward in the face of residents' wishes. The people have spoken, we want infinite blinking. Why is there so much reluctance with LL to REVERT things Afraid to admit a mistake? It's always "We'll bring it back differently", and months down the line we get a new feature that is less usable than the original was, just so Linden Labs can say "We never reverted any UI decision!".
Please. Wake up and smell the coffee. All alternative viewers have already reverted this misfeature. DO the Right Thing and revert! Thanks for fixing this
The orange color is much easier to see.
If you still want infinite blinking you can have it: Go into debug settings on the client menu and set "ButtonFlashCount" to 999999 that will give you an approximation of the old behaviour. Setting the flash count to 999999 is a horrible hack and not at all obvious.
Sure, make it optional, BUT MAKE IT A CLEAR AND OBVIOUS OPTION. Like, in preferences: IM tabs blink [10] times (0 for infinite blinking). The release notes say...
I haven't had a chance to test this out, undo my flash count hack, and see how that fix actually behaves, though! |
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Bug
Resolved
Normal
IM tabs no longer blink when new IM text is received
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